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Chuks Onuoha, Umuahia
Aggrieved tricycle operators, otherwise called Keke riders, yesterday descended on five revenue collection agents and gave them the beating of their lives for attempting to impound the tricycle of one of their members.
The agents had accused the Keke rider of failing to pay his daily ticket fee, and other wrong doings at Uchenna bus stop, along Aba Road, where he stopped to pick passengers.
Consequently, they attempted to impound his tricycle but the rider resisted them and that attracted the attention of his colleagues who came to the rescue one of their own.
In the ensuring fracas, two of the agents, who foresaw the coming danger, escaped into a nearby hotel premises, three others were turned to punching bags of the angry riders, while one was stripped naked.
As the battle raged, more Keke riders, especially those heading to Olokoro through Ohobo Afara Road, saw their colleagues and joined, hitting the revenue agents with heavy wood and stripping one naked, having beaten him to stupor.
However, the situation was later brought under control by concerned elders and youths of Ohobo Afara, who prevailed on the riders to have mercy on the revenue agents.
Speaking to Daily Sun, one of the riders who simply gave his name as Obinna, said that the agents fell into their trap and they dealt with them.
“We have been pushed to the wall by these people. We pay all manner of taxes, yet they are not satisfied. How can one come to somebody’s backyard to humiliate him? They harass us at Isi gate and Okpara Square, and now they want to extend the insult to our own community, we won’t allow that,” Obinna vowed.
He urged the government of Abia State to “arrest all illegal revenue agents if actually they are not working for the state.”
It would be recalled that Governor Okezie Ikpeazu had last week, extended the operational hours of tricycle operations from 7pm to 9pm in response to their city-wide protest a few weeks earlier.
The governor also urged members of the keke union to regulate the activities of its members, in order to fish out some criminal elements among them.
